Cosgrove's missing bridges

[Derek R.]

I was asked at the weekend if I knew the reason for the 'narrows' at Cosgrove, and was there ever a bridge there, and if so, whose accommodation it might have been for. The bridge numbering jumps from 65, the ornate 'Solomons', to 68 at Old Wolverton. 67 could well have been the long gone swing bridge over Cosgrove lock, which leaves 66 as being absent. Was there once a bridge at the 'narrows', of what type, and what did it serve - any ideas or knowledge gratefully received.

 

Link location with Google Maps: HERE.

 

Derek

[BEngo]

I was asked at the weekend if I knew the reason for the 'narrows' at Cosgrove, and was there ever a bridge there, and if so, whose accommodation it might have been for. The bridge numbering jumps from 65, the ornate 'Solomons', to 68 at Old Wolverton. 67 could well have been the long gone swing bridge over Cosgrove lock, which leaves 66 as being absent. Was there once a bridge at the 'narrows', of what type, and what did it serve - any ideas or knowledge gratefully received.

 

Link location with Google Maps: HERE.

 

Derek

 

 

The Buckingham arm would have needed a towpath bridge, but I assume that was the swing bridge across the lock so was the trunk numbered as 67, or was there a bridge as part of the temporary lockage down to the Ouse and up again? There seems no obvious evidence that the narrows ever had a bridge, though the works for concrete edging may have eliminated it.

 

N

[Derek R.]

Yes, the towpath of the Buckingahm arm is on the South side, so the swing bridge across the lock would have served to continue that towpath link. Local historian is sought! Will delve that way.

 

Thanks.

[Dorlan]

The swingbridge was No. 67...

 

There is a photograph of it here.

[Derek R.]

67 must have survived into the eighties, as I'm sure I remember seeing it. The only thing spanning the cut between 67 and 65 is (are) the pipes, and one of these is landed on the bank at the 'narrows', which makes me think that the narrows are connected with whatever is contained in the pipe. Are pipe bridges numbered? I wouldn't have thought so. Nor do I think aqueducts are numbered, if they were the Horse path beneath might have been 66, but not seen aqueducts numbered.

[alan_fincher]

The swingbridge was No. 67...

 

There is a photograph of it here.

 

67 must have survived into the eighties, as I'm sure I remember seeing it.

Unless my memory is shot to pieces, I very much doubt that.

 

I have no memory of it at all, and certainly neither a 1970s Nicholson's nor the 1974 edition of "The Canals book" show it.

 

A picture claimed to be circa 1970 in Ian J Wilson's "The Grand Union Canal from Brentford to Braunston" of a loaded Union Canal carrier's motor passing Cosgrove lock clearly doesn't show it, or any trace of it.

 

My guess is it was removed decades earlier.

[Dorlan]

The 1884 1:2,500 OS map doesn't show a bridge at the narrows.

OS maps show the lock as "Swing Bridge Lock" up until the 1958 1:10,560 map.

The maps can be seen at old-maps.co.uk

 

I wonder if the narrows could have been a boat-gauging point, such as the one at Norton Junction.

[mykaskin]

What happened with bridge numbers when the embankment and aqueduct was built? Wasn't there a renumbering of bridges at sometime in more 'recent' history?

 

Mike

[Derek R.]

You are possibly correct Alan, memory plays tricks, and there are two others existing that may have fooled me; Fenny, and the derelict below Leighton. (Haven't counted Cheddington, as it's based on the right Northbound).

 

As the swing bridge over Cosgrove lock could most likely have been 67, then the Old Wolverton bridge 68 would indicate there were no bridges over the locks down to the Ouse and up prior to the embankment and aqueduct. As to renumbering, it's a possibility, though many number plates are old, and new bridges get an 'A' suffix as we know.

 

The 'narrows' could well be to facilitate gauging for Buckingham arm traffic as Dorlan suggests, and later utilised for a shorter span for the pipe bridge and associated underground works, getting recapped in a 'makeover'. As Dorlan states, old OS maps back to 1884 show no bridge at that point: http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html Search; 'Cosgrove' > 'Northampton 1884 ~1900' in the right hand box.

 

A curiosity still, though I'm sure a simple reason. Perhaps there's a local superstition about the number '66'!

[alan_fincher]

You are possibly correct Alan, memory plays tricks, and there are two others existing that may have fooled me; Fenny, and the derelict below Leighton. (Haven't counted Cheddington, as it's based on the right Northbound).

Counting the ones only on the left, as you go North, there are actually still two derelict swing bridges, in addition to the operational one at Fenny.

 

As you say, there is 112 below Leighton lock, (and I suspect that the narrows above Leighton lock, which I guess represent a former bridge 113, may also have been a swing bridge - they certainly look that way).

 

The other one, still extant, which you have not mentioned is bridge 105, just above Stoke Hammond lock.

 

Images of both these two locks, (plus Fenny), appear here

[Derek R.]

Clearly the Cosgrove lock swing bridge had gone by 1970, nice set of images HERE through the link from Dorlan (Thanks, hadn't seen those before).

 

Spot the boat/boater time.

 

PS There is a note in the Buckingham website that the swing bridge from Cosgrove lock is now in use at Winkwell. That's going back a bit. It must have been used to replace a former. (Obviously not the thing that is there now!).

 

PPS The film Inland Waterways shot in 1950 show the Beresfords operating a different bridge, one with a winch operated by handle, and steel uprights with tubular bars. The one seen in 'The Bargee' operated by Ronnie, is of a similar design to that as seen in the photograph of Cosgrove lock bridge, but the ends are a different shape, and counting the steel uprights, the Winkwell one is longer. Perhaps it was extended.

 

There - something else you didn't want to know.

Edited June 13, 2011 by Derek R.

[Derek R.]

I can tell you are all on the edges of your seats about this;

 

There are many bridges on various maps and books that are not numbered, and many gaps in numbering on the ground. General opinion is that Cosgrove No. 66 is most likely to be the 'underbridge' that delves beneath the canal in the village.

 

Many other bridges carry no numbers, the bridge at Cowley Peachy Junction, and all of those on the Slough arm carry no number in the Nicholson's. Perhaps due to the arm being of a much later construction. The railway engineers made concise numbering and measuring of their bridges. The canal engineers nearly a century before must have seemed curious to some when they began numbering bridges. But for a precise location and to aid maintenance, a numbering system must have been seen as necessary, especially so as some accommodation bridges simply went from field to field - had no named road thereupon, and so were known as nothing by name, until the boatmen and women chose to call some locations such as Target Turn, Cement Corner, Yardley Deep, or 'Shop bridge' and so on.

 

And so to bed.